When Attorney General Rob McKenna signed on to the partisan Republican lawsuit challenging the federal Health Care Reform law, he claimed that he was not trying to overturn or repeal the entire law, only part of it.

In an interview with BJ Shea on KISW, McKenna stated, “We don’t think we can stop this entire bill, we don’t think we can or that we should.”

In a video on his official website, McKenna stated, “There are two provisions that are focused on in this lawsuit. None of the thousands of other provisions in the law are affected because we are just addressing these two provisions. . . . . the individual health insurance mandate. . . .and Medicaid.”

In an interview with KING 5 News, McKenna stated, “We are not challenging the policy, that is not our role.”

McKenna’s official website reads, “This suit will not ‘overturn’ or ‘repeal’ the new health care reform legislation. In fact, this lawsuit will not affect most provisions in this 2,400-page bill.”

Has McKenna been lying to us all along? Or…maybe he just didn’t know what the fuck he was doing by joining the lawsuit. Because the principles of the lawsuit see a larger purpose:

“This health-care law is an affront on Americans’ individual liberty,” said Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, who asked the high court to strike down the entire law, not just its mandate that all Americans have health insurance. […]

Bondi’s request to strike down the entire law was at odds with McKenna’s statements when he made Washington state a plaintiff in the case last year.

McKenna, a Republican candidate for governor in 2012, said his goal in joining the lawsuit was not to strike down the entire law, just the provisions he argues are unconstitutional — chiefly the mandate. But the plaintiffs’ legal briefs since then repeatedly have sought to scrap the entire law.

McKenna’s office said he has been overruled on that point by his co-plaintiffs.

So, whether he initially lied or was just too fucking stupid or incurious enough to know what he was signing up for, the one thing we know: McKenna hasn’t been influential enough to convince his fellow AGs to limit the scope to what he promised us.

McKenna’s posturing is, and always has been, a sham. He’s a puppet who takes orders from Wingnut Central along with the rest of them. Guys like Rossi, McKenna, Walker, et al., are low-level employees of their corporate sponsors who are given little or no discretionary authority. Rick Perry apparently didn’t read the whole memo so they’re sending him to re-education camp.

Er…his actions on this specific issue seem to counter the idea that he’s a “great lawyer”. Unless purposefully lying, or being monumentally naive (1 of the 2 are true in this case) are traits of a “great lawyer”.

I’m sure he’s a “nice guy”. But he’s a standard mid-level politician who takes his marching orders from national talking points so it’s easy to dismiss him as a joke.

Anyone who knows anything about the hob-goblin compromises which were inserted into this bill knows that the mandate was the only funding measure approved for the bill. Everyone had to participate to avoid having the system filled up with only those who already had serious health problems. Take away the mandate, and the structure of the bill collapses. What are they going to do – vote for taxes to fund the programs when people don’t sign up until they get to the point where they need the care?

So the whole idea that you could strike down the mandate and leave the rest of the bill intact is, and always was, baloney.

Either McKenna doesn’t know this and he is an imcompetent attorney general who committed the state’s perstige and treasury to litigation without studing the law first; or he knew the law and committed the State’s prestige and money as a cynical campaign tool to fuel his personal ambitions.

Either way, we should remove him from the office of attorney general at the first opportunity, and never let him get anywhere near the Governor’s mansion.

We bleed half a trillion for overseas oil. But you idiot liberals are still driving! I have been biking and riding the bus exclusively for well over a year now. We wouldn’t need free healthcare if everyone adopted a raw organic vegan diet. We wouldn’t need free government education if congress didn’t keep raising the amount of money an individual can borrow for student loans. Education and Healthcare have out inflated the rest of the market by a factor of three! How do you brain dead liberal panty-waists explain that? The job market has been dead since six months before Obama took office in ANTICIPATION of his ruinous administration. Instead of letting market forces correct healthcare and education prices your idiot liberal friends have made things worse, as usual. Instead of investing in sound renewable energy options Billions and Billions have been wasted on political liberal hack connected solar firms like solyndra and others with connections to Pelosi. The liberals have been stealing big for nearly four years now. Thank God your party is nearly over!

Remember the ‘no compete’ bids Halliburton was allowed to present during the Iraq war? The rationale for that was that competitive bids would disrupt the smooth operation of the war effort. There is such a huge conflict with that attitude and the ‘free market’ position of conservatives that I’m surprised you weren’t steaming like Rickles at a Las Vegas performance.

How is it possible? How could a person be so dense as to NOT see that on the one hand they are saying that smooth operation entails circumventing the free market while simultaneously touting the free market as the best and most efficient producer of all things.

@9 He’s going to remove himself from the AG’s office by running for governor. It’s up to Jay Inslee to make him unemployed and force him to make a living like a real lawyer — by hanging a shingle and practicing law.

@13 (complete fool libertarian) Two of the dumbest things I have seen written in a long time: “We wouldn’t need free healthcare if everyone adopted a raw organic vegan diet.”

Umm, while diet and exercise can reduce the risk of heart disease and diabetes – they do not eliminate it. I have seen vegans get cancer and they die a horrible death from cachexia just like meat eaters do.

“We wouldn’t need free government education if congress didn’t keep raising the amount of money an individual can borrow for student loans.”

Umm, a private eduation can easily cost 200K – only the rich could afford it. Public education is even more important now than ever so that bright deserving students can actually afford a college education. If they didn’t raise the amount of loans – even fewer students could afford to go to college.

Libertarians are the same idiots who think that less regulations on the banking industry would have somehow prevented the banks from gambling with our money and trying to please their stock holders.

Of course, we’ve been talking for the last few months. We started talking as a result of the Nebraska compromise – or the “Cornhusker kickback,” as it’s sometimes called. And two of us got together, and others joined us.

Why? The Barack ObamAA+ sadministration is trying to fast track this to the SCOTUS because it looked like another Circuit Court was about to rule against them. If the SCOTUS think it’s unconstitutional then McKenna was right!

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